Man These People Are Serious (Telebears VI: MCB)

In the world of cutthroat, do-or-die Berkeley academics, nothing comes close to the savage ferocity with which MCB students pennypinch their points, looking for every possible opportunity to better themselves in the race for Hopkins or Michigan or whatever. We don’t even understand the joke in the picture above. Way too crazy and anal-retentive, those bio people–save our editor’s awesome roommate, who kicks all your asses.

So see what these thoroughly insane people say about their profs (actually, these are probably the cooler kids who are saying it, the real insane ones are still hiding in the shadows of the Main Stacks)

(Note: If you have any memories about professors in this department for a class or in general, please contribute them in the comments. Direct sources>Indirect sources.)

MCB 110
Tom Alber, MWF 10-11, 100 GPB
“Lectured quickly on powerpoint slides that didn’t quite match up with the reader, which was confusing. I ended up taking noted quickly in pencil and then rewriting in pen…Most of the stuff I had to learn from the texts and the gsi…Wow, what a nice guy. Helpful, clear, encouraging, lively, and funny.”

MCB 132Kunxin Luo, TuTh 2-330, 100 GPB
“Uses powerpoints. Helpful at office hours. Her tests don’t sample all the material covered. They tend to focus on just a few concepts and you either know it or you don’t…Talks really fast when she’s excited about a topic. Seeks feedback from students.”

MCB 135E
Paola Timiras, MWF 12-1, 100 GPB” Cute little Italian lady. Material is general but interesting. Exams are fair…lectures at the speed of light….Tests are right out of the reader. Information is pretty interesting also…Her lectures are clear and interesting and all that you need to do on the exams is reproduce her PowerPoint.”

MCB 140Fyodor Urnov, MWF 11-12, 159 Mulford
“Emphasizes understanding experiments over memorization. His class is what an upper div MCB course should be: challenging and intellectually interesting…he is really intimidating and likes to yell a LOT, but not because he’s mean…Best way to study: Go over each experiment and figure out the reason behind each step.”

MCB C142
Georjana Barnes, MWF 9-10, 2050 VLSB
(only one review, and yes, we are quoting directly): “This woman loves yeast and she will make you love it too. Very clear and intersting. She also has an off-beat sence of humor. Once the class got it, we thought she was hilarious.”

MCB 150
Mark Schlissel, TuTh 930-11, 2060 VLSB
“good prof, hard test…Though he gave a hard test, I learned a lot in his class and he motivated me as well!…I would advise future students to take your own notes for his section though, because his lecture slides are next to useless when you’re studying.”